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The ad, by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's group Everytown for Gun Safety, is airing in the District of Columbia and three states. It targets three Republican senators: Dean Heller of Nevada, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, lawmakers who have shown a willingness to back some sort of gun control or whose communities have faced a tragic mass shooting.

The focus on women and domestic violence comes after gun-control advocates gained little traction on efforts to tighten restrictions on gun ownership.

Public opinion on the issue is divided. A CNN poll from December found that 50% of people are opposed to tighter gun-control laws, but 49% support them.

But under pressure from the National Rifle Association, Congress did not pass reforms that would have strengthened background checks for gun purchases.

The new advertisement was released Tuesday and is part of a campaign to link the potentially deadly combination of guns and domestic abuse.

The NRA, which opposes most efforts to restrict gun ownership, did not respond to a request for comment on the new campaign.

The Senate Judiciary Committee held its first hearing on the issue Wednesday and heard from Elvin Daniel, an NRA member and gun owner whose sister was killed by a domestic abuser.

"It has been nearly two years since Zina was murdered and it is heartbreaking to know that our weak gun laws continue to allow dangerous abusers to buy guns without background checks," he said, choking back tears.

Giffords also announced the Protect all Women Leadership Network, which brings together leading women working in both policy and advocacy to push for reforms at the state and federal level to protect women from gun-toting abusers.

Advocates point to statistics that show that 46 women are shot and killed by a current or former domestic partner each month and that more than half of women murdered are killed by their current or former partners.

Giffords wrote that more women were shot to death by an intimate partner between 2001 and 2012 than the number of soldiers killed in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Advocates also point to a recent incident in Texas in which police accused a man with a history of domestic violence of shooting and killing many of his estranged wife's family members during a violent rampage.

"This is an area where we can really make progress and keep guns out of dangerous hands," said Erika Soto Lamb, spokeswoman for Everytown for Gun Safety.

They have gotten behind a bill by Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota that would expand gun restrictions for abusive dating partners.

It currently applies only to married partners. The proposal would restrict guns from people who have been issued restraining orders.

George Mason University law professor Joyce Lee Malcolm told the hearing that "taking these guns without due process violates that fundamental right."

In a statement, Ayotte pointed to her co-sponsorship of the Violence Against Women Act, which passed in the Senate last year, but did not indicate whether she'd back Klobuchar's bill.